For a while now I’ve noticed a strange habit around Pristina: wherever I stop for a sandwich or a salad on a break, I get met with “something to drink?” It seemed like a small, friendly upsell at first, until I started paying attention to how deliberate it was.
At a sweet shop recently, I ran into the same question. Being with someone, I turned it back on her instead: do you want anything? That’s when it started to feel less like hospitality and more like being pressured into buying a bottle of water or a can I didn’t want, out of social awkwardness more than thirst.
I ended up paying a euro more than I’m used to and decided, in a small and admittedly petty way, to push back on the places that lean on this the hardest, both in person and on Foursquare, where I’ve started calling out the spots that essentially shake customers down for bottled water. The worst offender: a café at Albi Mall that refuses to serve tap water at all, only a tiny 0.25L bottle of imported water, while a floor up in the same building, the same tap water gets served without a second thought, apparently on the theory that a coffee needs a glass of something next to it to feel proper.
Has anyone brought you water you never asked for and then charged you for an “Aqua Panna”? Let’s be honest, does Kosovo really have a standard where water costs 2.5 euros? It makes no sense. It’s not fair to put customers in the position of feeling forced into a purchase like that.
If you’re spending money somewhere to feel good about the experience, that place owes you the basics: comfort, decency, being treated fairly. As customers we always have the option of going somewhere else offering the same thing. There’s no shortage of those in this city.
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